No smartphones for servitors inside Puri temple

Puri: Tightening security for the Puri Srimandir, the Chhatisha Niyog (priests’ body) has decided to restrict use of smartphone by servitors on temple premises.

The decision taken at a meeting of the priests’ body held under the chairmanship of Shree Jagannath Temple Administration (SJTA) chief Pradeep Jena here today came in the wake of a selfie taken by a youth inside the shrine going viral.

At the meeting, it was maintained that servitors can only use feature phones inside the temple. Besides, special logos approved by the SJTA will be put on the mobile phones of the servitors. The SJTA will provide the logos to servitors.

The meeting also discussed the schedule for the special rituals to be performed during the upcoming holy Kartik month.

“We discussed on which variant mobile phones servitors can use inside the temple. The temple servitors and staff will use non-camera phones inside the shrine. We have also planned to introduce Closed User Groups (CUG) system for the servitors and will discuss with mobile operators soon,” said the SJTA chief, Jena.

District Collector Aravind Agrawal said, “Realising the need of mobile phones for coordination in temple work, we have decided to provide feature phones to servitors and temple staff through CUG system.”